


is it really martyrdom if you're not even dead?

by asmilemingledwithwrath



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-23
Updated: 2016-03-23
Packaged: 2018-05-28 13:33:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,063
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6331201
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/asmilemingledwithwrath/pseuds/asmilemingledwithwrath
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tip the scales gently, for it is not the monsters that howl into the softness of the night.</p><p> <i>the war is yours, but you still do not know what your side counted as.</i><br/><i>(perhaps there are no good people in war.)</i><br/><i>you only know that you did what you must to protect them.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	is it really martyrdom if you're not even dead?

There is a reason why hero and horror sound so similar.  
  
When the English language was being created, they took from both Greek and Latin--  
  
No.  
  
Every story has an evil and someone must always rise to stop it, but then--  
  
No.  
  
The words originated from a different etymology and a different meaning from the other, and in the end, they don’t know if the monsters were the evil or _they were._

 

They have won. They are the hero, the champion - the one everyone cheers for and watches pass by with admiring glances.  
  
They condemned an entire species to an eternity of imprisonment.  
  
Their fist clenches harder upon the carefully, lovingly polished wood in their grip – they are sure, if they had the strength, they would have split their own weapon like kindling already. [a sword, a spear. it doesn’t matter what it is. both have spilt dust in their hands. they have to protect their people with any means possible.]

 

They would do it again if they had to. The strength the monsters could have reached with but a single human SOUL is indescribable, unimaginable – more than a monster, more than a man. Less than both, in the end. An abomination made out of blood and magic and death. The temptation of absolute power is always, _always_ taken by someone, sometime, in the end; if there is one thing they know, it is that the lure corrupts absolutely.  
  
(But humans cannot take theirs. Theirs are too weak, too fragile, too insubstantial – a monster is not physical, magic more than bone or flesh or anything else. A human could try, but even a Boss Monster’s splits in seconds.)  
  
The road to hell is paved with good intentions, as everyone has murmured into their ears since youth. A pacifist would kill someone to defend their child; a hero would damn a people to protect their own.  
  
They don’t know if this was the right thing to do, but it’s one they cannot afford to regret. (Everyone is counting on them, after all.)  
  
They look at the trophies, the gifts others will not accept their rejection of, and they think: they must be the reason why gild and guilt sound the same.

 

But they would do it again.  
  
They were afraid, and so were their people, and if this is what it takes to finally give them all a sense of security, to finally stop whispering and holding their own SOULs close in the fear that one day, one _day,_ a monster will finally give in to the allure of the power in their deaths, well…  
  
They do what they must.  
  
They will always do what they must; for if they do not, who will?

 

There is a reason why scared and scarred are almost the same word, with only one letter to distinct them.  
  
Those who are scarred become scared, and those who are most scared are often the most scarred. The ones who are not, are scared of becoming scarred. In the end, they both tie together intrinsically.  
  
They look at the lines marring their fingers and palms, the labour of work and war and love, and they know this to be true. They know, too, that they should be relieved now that the enemy is hidden away, locked with as strong magic as they could muster – but they do not feel so.  
  
They are still scared [still of monsters, still of stolen SOULs ripped from picked-over children – but now, maybe a little bit of themself.] and they are still tired. It’s just that everyone else is happy; so, they suppose, it was worth it in the end.

 

They already know that everyone will be painting them as a figure of light. Good and righteous and just, their sword and their spear equal forces built into their hands like both are their signature, always wielding something long and sharp. Never again will they be known as anything other than the warrior, the knight, the vanquisher of their people’s fears.  
  
They’ve already seen the portraits, the monsters drawn with demonic sneers and teeth dagger-sharp even on those without mouths.  
  
They understand the motivation behind it, but think the exaggeration of the caricature is painfully unnecessary. (It was not the monsters’ features that any of them were scared of, after all.)  
  
Fear and fair are homonymous, which they find a little funny if only because it is one pair of words they have thought of that have nothing to do with each other at all. When you are afraid, the last thing you think of showing is mercy.  
  
It was far from the first for them, in any case.  
  
They suppose their LV is simply too high, after every monster they struck down.  
  
They suppose, hero though they are, they are simply no longer a very nice person. (Then again, were they ever?)  
  
Noble ideas don’t always mean noble actions or noble thoughts. Driving monsters away to save humans may be the worst decision they could ever only pick. (There was no choice at all, when it came down to it. Not for them.  
  
To let their men suffer, stressed, all but plucking their hair out, terrified for themselves and their family was something they would not, _could not_ abide.)  
  
They supposed that made them a hero, after all.  
  
Just at the cost of the other side.

 

What was war but loss and death? Loss of innocence, loss of life, loss of peace – there was no glory in it, in battles that were self-defence for every party involved.  
  
But perhaps it was too kind to call it war, in truth.  
  
Really, it had been more of a _massacre._  
  
(They didn’t know if that made the monsters kind, or weak.  
  
They supposed it really didn’t matter.)  
  
What was important was they had _won,_ they had all reigned victorious, and there was no possibility for the magic-based beings to devour their people and their SOULs any longer. That was all they could have possibly asked for.

 

Fear was as bitter a poison as anger – threat as venomous a bite as insult. Hostility rose either way, no matter what the flavour and name of the toxin.  
  
In the end, they think they were all simply too human to be anything but pessimistic on the matter.  
  
Too paranoid for the story to end in any other way but this.

**Author's Note:**

> "and there’s a reason that gild and guilt sound the same." - http://flightrising.com/main.php?dragon=5976249
> 
> i was basically directly inspired by this one line from this thing that has absolutely nothing to do with undertale tbh because the concept of this homonym thing and just comparing words always struck me and i knew i had to do _something_ with it  
>  and then the something ended up being writing about a character that more or less isn't in the game u kno just little things
> 
>  **edit:** lmao i... i noticed the tag i had used before was redirected to the poncho human tag bUT IT ACTUALLY WASN'T... INCLUDED IN IT SO I'M JUST GOING TO QUIETLY FIX THAT IN OOPS


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